Land Rover Discovery Sport 2.0 TD4 SE Tech (5 Seat) 5d Owner Review

I bought my 2017MY SE Tech 2.0 ingenium Discovery Sport (150bhp 5 seat) as a nearly new car in October ‘17 and ran it until October ‘20. After 3 years of living with the ‘Disco Sport’ I thought it was time to review my time with the car. I’ll start with the positives: - After 3 years of ownership I still look at ‘Disco Sports’ and think what a pretty car they are. - In my 3 years of ownership the car never left me stranded, no major breakdowns to report. - For such a bluff shaped vehicle it’s remarkably quiet at motorway speeds. - I only ventured off-road a couple of times (light use) and the terrain response was great. - Tyre wear on Pirelli Scorpions was great - no complaints. - As a towcar it’s brilliant, I used it to tow a 1,100kg caravan a few times a year and in this respect it’s great. Negatives: The ‘Disco Sport’ was definitely something of an emotional purchase - a car I wanted to love and treated myself to but alas the reality fell short of the dream. - Servicing: The DS is supposed to do 20-odd thousand miles between services. Mine usually managed about 6-7k between demanding an oil change. This is undoubtably due to the nature of journeys I used the car for but makes a diesel DS pretty much useable unless you have a long commute to work due to oil dilution issues. - Faults : The DS never left me stranded but I’ve had more faults with this car than all previous cars I’ve ever owned combined in over 25 years of motoring including: 1. Rough idle speed fixed under warranty 2. Wiper blades clash with A pillar fixed under warranty 3. Rear brake discs and pads due to excessive wear replaced under warranty. 4. Haywire electric boot mechanism fixed under warranty at the 2nd attempt - although worth noting by this time is had already shut on my daughters head and the ‘hands free’ boot open function is frankly cr@p and rarely works. Dealer informed me this was ‘normal’. 5. Parking sensors: Total failure requiring replacement of the rear wiring harness under warranty. 6. ‘Incorrect Ad-blue’ warning message: Dash display indicating the vehicle would not start in 500 miles due to incorrect ad-blue despite the only top ups being done by the dealer during those 6-7k services. Dealer relieved me if £200-odd quid for the privilege. 7. ‘Low Battery’ warning message: Gave up with the original LR battery at 3 years and replaced to get rid of the weekly low battery messages. - Design Flaws: Not faults per-se but just things that will annoy you living with the DS: 1. Boot design: when you open the boot in heavy rain it dumps a large volume of water onto the boot floor - great ☹️ 2. Infotainment: It’s so laggy it just becomes irritating to use. You’ll also find on occasion after restart the temperature display will show -36 degrees and it’ll drop your radio pre-sets every now and again. All ‘normal’ according to the dealer. 3. External Trim fit: When you first wash the car you get a feel for the poor external trim quality- all the external plastic parts seem to rattle about although in fairness none fell off in 3 years of ownership. 4. Interior Trim: Similarly no trim fell off in 3 years of ownership but the interior plastic quality is best described as ‘patchy’. Just have a good look before you buy. 5. Rear seat: I bought this car given it looked like a genuine 5 seater. The middle rear seat is REALLY uncomfortable. Come on LR - you fit a virtually flat floor and then hobble the car with a rubbish middle perch - grrrrr! So overall a car I bought wanting to love, but rapidly went off it. Ultimately I’ve replaced it with a VW Tiguan Allspace. The VW is no where near as pretty to look at and doesn’t feel as ‘special’ but it starts and works without fault over the last 6 months. C’mon LR you can do better - the basic ingredients of the DS are absolutely spot on, but you’ve got to fix the reliably issues and iron out the silly design faults.